Without heeding the question in the least the Itinerant Tinker turned the slab for Dickey's inspection, and he read on it the two words, to love. Taking up a wedge the Itinerant Tinker printed the word dearly on the flat side of it, and then skilfully drove it between the words to and love. When he again held it up for Dickey to see, it read: to dearly love.
"There!" exclaimed the Itinerant Tinker, holding the slab proudly at arm's length and turning his head slowly from side to side, "that's what I call a fine bit of ingenuity!"
"So that's a split infinitive, is it?" Dickey asked.
"Why, you stupid boy!" the Itinerant Tinker exclaimed; "didn't you just this minute see me split it?"
"Yes, sir; I did," Dickey murmured rather shamefacedly.
"Then, if I split it, what else could it be but a split infinitive, I'd like to know?"
"Well," said Dickey, a bit timidly, "I never heard a block of wood called an infinitive before."
"Oh, my!" sighed the Itinerant Tinker, as he sank down on his pile of merchandise. "How you do weary me!"
He sat looking at the slab of wood for such a long time, turning it admiringly now that way, now this, that poor Dickey began to grow quite nervous.
"Please," he ventured at last, "won't you show me now how you mend it?" Dickey didn't care in the least to see it done, but he imagined that by asking the question he would regain the good will of the old man.